Moreton Bay Photo 2

To mark National Family History Week in Australia (4-12 August 2007) ancestorsonboard.com is launching the Moreton Bay Family History Challenge.

The Moreton Bay was the first of the Australian Commonwealth Government Line Ships designed to facilitate a state sponsored emigration of British subjects to Australia.

View a free two-minute movie entitled “Passenger Lists: People on the move” on the homepage of our sister site, findmypast.com. The movie contains original footage of passengers boarding the Moreton Bay for its maiden voyage from Tilbury, East London to Brisbane in 1921.

The accompanying full-colour 20-page passenger list will be made available free to view on the site from early August until the end of September.

To help you pick out individuals we’ve provided some stills from the movie. This entry is for photo 2 – if you recognise anyone in the photo please leave a comment here.

We’re giving away a free Voyager subscription to the first 50 people who can identify an ancestor within the 762 people who travelled on the Moreton Bay. If you think that someone on board is one of your ancestors, show us them in your family tree.

To be in with a chance of winning, simply upload your GEDCOM using the family tree builder on findmypast.com or start a tree from scratch using this new, free software. Once this is done email us at moretonbaychallenge@findmypast.com to let us know the details of your intrepid ancestor.

Please tell any of your family and friends that you think might be able to trace their ancestors emigrating to Australia aboard the Moreton Bay and present them with this exclusive way of researching their family trees.